The RM-80 Microprocessor
Apr 19, 2024
Advanced/Diagnostic Screens and Features
March 17, 2020
EVI considers screens to be advanced if they meet either of two criteria:
- The screen requires RM-80 data that may create a significant load on loop communications
- The screen's primary function is to diagnose problems with RMCS and/or RM-80 Loop communications
Several screens meet both criteria, for example the All RM-80 Statistics screen needs to request an RM-80 Statistics report from EVERY RM-80 on EVERY loop. During the loading of this type of screen, channel value polling on the loop must slow down somewhat to make room (bandwidth-wise) for the additional data requests. While RMCS is coded to ensure that data polling is never interrupted for longer than absolutely necessary, frequent interruptions can still add up.
Channel History
The data displayed on a Channel History screen is requested from an RM-80 for the specific channel and time period. The RM-80 averages collected values over the various different periods (10 min, 1 hr, and 24 hrs.) Note that the RM-80's internal clock/calendar does not function when powered off. That means that a power failure flag (PF) after a value indicates that the particular value was averaged over an unknown time period that includes however long the RM-80 was without power.
The Channel History screen includes a bar graph for each history value. The horizontal scale for the bar graph is set to the bottom of the lowest decade that contains a value and the top of the highest decade that contains a value. Note that, unlike the channel trend graphs, the bar graph uses only the current alert and high alarm set point values because it is not possible to accurately match the averaged value time boundaries with historical data due to the way the RM-80 handles time and the averaging.
RMCS Database Editor
This tool provides a graphical interface for an administrator to make changes to the RMCS Database for a commonly used subset of fields that varies by the type of database record being edited. For example many of the fields that may be changed for a channel value's databsse record are not available for an RM-80's database record.
The database itself is presented as a tree list, located at the left side of the tool dialog. Below the tree list is the current value of the selected record and some list sorting options. To the right of the list is a panel that changes to reflect the fields available for each selected record type.
When a technician sees this tool, the name will change from editor to viewer and the Apply button will not be shown. This allows technicians to view, but not change the RMCS Database.
External Trending
RMCS includes the trending program created for EVI PICS product, Recall Display (or Redisp). Redisp can display live and/or historical trend plots and provides some analysis tools that may be used when reviewing the trended data. Full help is available for Redisp by pressing F1, and should be consulted to learn about all of the powerful features of the product. Here we will describe the easy way to use RMCS Display to quickly create live trends in Redisp and how to easily convert the trends to historical plots and use them for some basic analysis.
Creating Live Trends
The RMCS Display context menus for Loops, RM-80s and Channels include some options with names that take the form "Send [something] to Trend Tool." The [something] varies by context menu, but all of these choices will ask the external Recall Display program to create a new, live graph of the data referenced by [something] over the past hour. Here's what type of information each different graph produces:
| [something] | Type of Trend Graph Produced |
|---|---|
| Loop | The operational status of every RM-80 on the loop. The status values are "ranked" from Worst to Best mostly for the purpose of having discrete values to plot, These status values are things like All Good (meaning both Alpha and Bravo comms are OK), A NoRm80/B Good (meaning no RM-80 comms on Alpha, AOK on Bravo), etc. |
| RM-80 Flows | A graph that plots the RM-80 status along with the sample and process flows. |
| RM-80 Channels | The RM-80 status and every channel value (but no alarm set points) |
| RM-80 Status | Each of the 16 monitor status bits from MI044 is plotted independantly |
| Value | The selected channel's value, alert and high set points are plotted |
| Status | All 16 channel status bits from CI002 are plotted independantly |
Working with Recall Display Trend Graphs
While reviewing a trend in Redisp you may:
- Click and drag within the graph to see the time/value at the starting point, the current mouse location and the deltas between the two positions. This allows measurement of both time and amount of value change between any two points on the graph.
- Click in the area containing the pen heads and drag across the graph to see the value of every plotted point at the time intersected by the marker line being dragged.
- Press the F8 key to have the vertical scale automatically adjusted. Normally, this will provide a very clear view of the data. Occasionally the values produced seem to violate one of the program's internal rules and it just chooses the +/-11 decade for the limit that failed.
- To manually adjust the vertical scale limits, use Ctrl+UpArrow or Ctrl+DownArrow keys to adjust the top (high) limit and Alt+UpArrow or Alt+DownArrow to adjust the bottom (low) limit.
- A trend's context menu provides access to other tools, like:
- Show Statistics... – perform some common statistical computations on ONLY the values that are visible in the graph. (The values used in the computations are weighted by the amount of time each value existed.)
- Historical... – convert the live+history graph to a purely historical graph that shows data for the specified time period. BEWARE: very large time periods will take a very long time to retrieval all of the historical data!
- Properties... – make changes to almost any aspect of the trend graph (except the data itself)
- The plus and minus keys may be used to decrease (i.e. zoom in) and increase (i.e. zoom out) on the time scale. When you zoom out to a point where more data is required, pressing the F9 key will retrieve the necessary data from the archiver.
- Double-click on the time period shown in the status bar to manually enter the exact time range you want to see.
Please read the documentation in the Recall Display help file for more detailed information about all of these features and more.